Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Saturday, December 06, 2014

The Military Muscle

As many remember Nelson Mandela on the anniversary of his
death, his hopes seem as far away as ever. For now, the advance of democracy in
Africa appears to have stalled. Elections have now been held across the
continent, but their credibility varies. In some countries, rulers deploy state
security forces to marginalize opposition leaders. Less autocratic leaders
foster loyalty by doling out state jobs and other perks that would raise
eyebrows even in many developing nations. In 1990, just three of Africa’s 48
countries were electoral democracies, according to Freedom House, a
Washington-based pro-democracy advocacy group. By 1994, that number had leapt
to 18. Two decades later, only 19 qualify. In many African countries, soldiers
have run the show since the earliest days of colonialism. In the late 1800s,
Europeans recruited local men into new armies to help conquer a vast continent.
Throughout the imperial century that followed, Europeans used those colonial
brigades to repress the African lawyers, civil servants and journalists who were
agitating for independence. Today, blue-chip companies such as Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. and General Electric Co. are expanding into countries whose leaders have
never faced a real electoral contest.

Two decades of elections and economic progress in Africa
haven’t erased the vast power that militaries have long wielded in many
countries, large and small. In much of Africa, in fact, the armed forces have
gained influence in recent years as battling Islamist terrorists has become a
priority. The military remains a swaggering presence in Nigeria, Africa’s most
populous country. On the surface, the country is a flourishing democracy.
President Goodluck Jonathan, one of the first elected Nigerian leaders who
didn’t come from the military. But Nigeria’s army—which led the country almost
nonstop from 1966 to 1999—still wields considerable power. A fifth of Nigeria’s
nearly $30 billion budget goes to the armed forces. When Kashim Shettima, the
governor of a state in Boko Haram’s heartland, complained that the army was
being gutted by corruption, Mr. Jonathan threatened on television to remove the
soldiers guarding Mr. Shettima’s house, exposing him to attack by Boko Haram.

The military has defended Mr. Jonathan, too. Soldiers have
blocked opposition leaders from landing at airports during their campaigns, and
in June, soldiers confiscated bundles of newspapers containing articles criticizing
government corruption.

The U.S. trained some 52,000 African troops in 2013 alone,
at a cost of $99 million. After Liberia’s 14-year civil war ended in 2003, the
U.S. paid security contractor DynCorp International, based in McLean, Virginaa,
to train the country’s new, 2,000-person army. Other institutions like the
health ministry received scant attention.

“There are signs of the predatory nature of military rule”
returning to Africa, said Larry Diamond, director of Stanford University’s
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. “This is a calamity for a
number of these countries.”

Many African countries, such as Angola and Sudan, are
resource-rich, single-party autocracies that have consolidated their grip on
power. Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, is a military commander who
has used his country’s vast oil wealth to build a police network that has
helped to neutralize rivals for more than 30 years. In 2012, his party won more
than two-thirds of the vote in elections that observers called deeply flawed. Nations
that underwent the Arab Spring have regressed back to military dictatorship as
in the case of Sisi’s Egypt or become militia civil war zones as in Libya. Africa
has weathered more than 60 coups between 1960 and 1990, according to the
African Development Bank. Some overturned election results that military
leaders found unpalatable; others promised to stamp out political corruption,
took over and became corrupt themselves. A whole generation of elected leaders
is now angling for more time in power. Next year, both Faure Gnassingbé of Togo
and Joseph Kabila of Congo are expected to seek third terms. (Mr. Kabila will
have to change Congo’s constitution to do so; Togo has no term limits.) Both
men inherited power from their fathers, who were ex-military leaders.

Robert Mugabe, 90, has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980. This week,
he tightened his grip on power at a party conference by sidelining perceived
rivals and backing his 49-year-old wife, Grace, for a senior party post. And
former rebel commander Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president since 2000, is widely
believed to be weighing a constitutional amendment that would allow him to
remain in power beyond his second elected seven-year term, which is set to end
in 2017.